Inside Google+ — How the Search Giant Plans to Go Social — Today, Google, the world's largest search company, is formally making its pitch to become a major force in social networking. The product it's announcing is called Google+, and observers might wonder whether it's simply …

Google Yawn — I've been to so many big earth-shaking events from BigTechCo's — today's Google thing is making me yawn, while my eyes glaze over in boredom. — Here's how products like this are conceived: — 1. We need to kill Facebook. — 2. What will we do. — 3. It can't just be Facebook.

It's So Obvious — My career in developing large scale systems that allow people to express themselves and communicate started in 1999 with Xanga. I left after a couple years and got more academic about the democratization of information on the web. Ironically, I wrote two books about blogging.

Evolving the Google design and experience — Starting today, you might begin noticing that things look a little different across Google products. We're working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you'll continue to see more updates to our look and feel.

Groupon leaks entire Indian user database — The entire user database of Groupon's Indian subsidiary Sosasta.com was accidentally published to the Internet and indexed by Google. The database includes the e-mail addresses and clear-text passwords of the site's 300,000 users.

Sprint's Hesse Pushes to Stop T-Mobile/AT&T — Dan Hesse's White Room is closely guarded even within Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) The chief executive officer carries the only key and draws black curtains over his scribblings before leaving. This is where Hesse retreats to map out “nukes” in red …

The Data Liberation Front Delivers Google Takeout — Since we began in 2007, the Data Liberation Front has been focused on one thing: making it easier for you to take your data in and out of Google. Our first step was to make it easier to get your data out of our products, one product at a time.

Office 365 vs. Google Apps: The InfoWorld review — With Office 365 now available in final form, here's what you need to know to decide if Office 365 or Google Apps (or neither) is right for your organization — Everything's going to the cloud, but only the hopelessly naïve would believe it's a stairway to heaven.

Amazon Starts an Ad Network, Powered by Your Data — You can buy just about anything on Amazon.com, including advertising. Now Amazon is selling ads on other people's sites, too. — The e-commerce giant has started what is effectively an ad network*, where it buys Web advertising inventory and resells it to marketers at a premium.

Zynga IPO Implies a $15-$20 Billion Valuation — Zynga is planning to file its initial public offering documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as Wednesday, and wants to raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

Apple refunding pros for Final Cut Pro X — Apple have been processing refunds for Final Cut Pro X as complaints flood in from grumpy pros - and it seems they are taking a lenient approach. — Although the iTunes / App Store terms and conditions state that ‘all sales are final’ …

Thousands of Tumblr Logins Stolen in Phishing Attack — The past few days have seen a rather aggressive phish attack targeting users of popular Microblogging service Tumblr. What started off as a strange (if rather basic) “click the link to see an advert” scam has now become a phishing problem …

Adobe welcomes Final Cut Pro users with open arms — Apple has been dealing with some complaints from Final Cut Pro X users who feel the new application is not up to the professional level they've come to expect from the app. Not surprisingly, Adobe is stepping up to welcome those dissatisfied users to Premiere Pro.

LeapFrog Unveils Tablet Computer for Children — All parents who own an iPad know this: Their kids want to play with the iPad as much as they do, and that means they have to share. — Now LeapFrog, the educational toy maker, may provide some relief. The company on Tuesday unveiled …

Facebook bans KDE application, deletes user photos — KDE users have gotten a rather unpleasant surprise from Facebook: Not only is the site blocking KDE apps like Gwenview from uploading, the social media giant has also taken down photos uploaded with the KDE plugins.

The Gaga Effect Spreads to Tumblr — Is there any technology platform that Lady Gaga, the eccentric and entertaining pop songstress, can't dominate? She's already appeared in a commercial for Google Chrome, debuted her own game on Farmville, crashed Amazon's servers and partnered with companies …